5 Replies - 1428 Views - Last Post: 30 November 2009 - 05:51 PM

Open Source hosting

Posted 30 November 2009 - 03:23 AM

Hi All,

Very likely something discussed here before.

I have been looking at GitHub and Sourceforge for an open-source project of mine in C++, and I was wondering if you guys had suggestions as to which to go for. I've been working with SourceForge for years, but I'm leaning more and more towards GitHub these days, especially because I'm doing more and more Ruby rather than Java. Which open-source hosting site would you recommend? One of these 2? Or another one entirely?

Re: Open Source hosting

I don't think your choice of language really affects where you decide to host your project - it's moreso which version control system you like more(along with featureset).

I've noticed that a lot of the projects I tend to work with these days are either on Google Code or Github - sourceforge isn't even really considered for project hosting(although I'm not sure why).

Which source control system do you prefer? You should decide on that before you start trying to figure out where to host your project.

True, I totally forgot about Google code: I guess I unconsciously rejected it for a c++ project ... wrt to source-control, I am more used to CVS/Subversion, but git would do me fine, though I still have to look into its merging capability (merging with Subversion still causes me nightmares).

Even though it is true you can pretty much host any type of projects with the sites mentioned, Google code is very much Java and Javascript oriented (very much due to the fact that it's the languages they promote internally, with Python to a lesser extent), git hosts many more Ruby projects, again probably because the technologies behind are Rails/Ruby friendly. Sourceforge would tend to prove that this technology “magnetism” disappears with time (though again I'm biased because that's the one I'd have used most in the past), but with Google code, not so sure.

I'll probably stick with SF because that's what I'm used to, but for some reason, I have the impression that they are “behind.” I guess the identity problems with their colours/banners, etc. changing every second day doesn't help at all.

Re: Open Source hosting

I am more used to CVS/Subversion, but git would do me fine, though I still have to look into its merging capability (merging with Subversion still causes me nightmares).

Significantly better. DVCS like Git, Mercurial, Bazaar are merge friendly. In fact, the idiom for working on a project is to branch. A DVCS encourages forking.

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Google code is very much Java and Javascript oriented (very much due to the fact that it's the languages they promote internally, with Python to a lesser extent), git hosts many more Ruby projects, again probably because the technologies behind are Rails/Ruby friendly. Sourceforge would tend to prove that this technology “magnetism” disappears with time (though again I'm biased because that's the one I'd have used most in the past), but with Google code, not so sure.

I would discard that perceived language orientation. Simply use what you think is best. I've favored Google Code because of Mercurial support (which is what I use by default now).

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I have the impression that they are “behind.” I guess the identity problems with their colours/banners, etc. changing every second day doesn't help at all.

Their cutting down of features combined with bad navigation issues and various bugs in their system in the past didn't help. I think navigation on that site is still ugly.

Re: Open Source hosting

Posted 30 November 2009 - 05:51 PM

I've only really used SourceForge, so I guess I'm a little biased. I'm not sure what caused the constant theme change, but their services/policies have remained pretty constant. Last time I checked, they offer Subversion, CVS, and Mercurial. You also get web hosting (with MySQL), and SSH access.

The new thing they've been working on is "applications", where basically you can check a few boxes and have your own Mediawiki/Trac/Wordpress/etc setup in a couple of minutes on their servers.